This year we went back to Samatun, a place we have started to consider as our “Field Day home”. The weather gods was kind this time around, and the usual wool sweater, beanie and mittens could be replaced with sunscreen, cool shades and a cap. We had +25 degrees celsius, sun and almost no wind. Perfect Field Day weather!
With 45 participants, where 25 never had joined Field Day before, we were excited for the weekend when we left Samfundet and headed for Samatun. Due to the nice weather, there were more participants sleeping outside in hammocks and tents than inside this weekend. The organizing committee was a bit stressed coming up to the trip, because it’s only beds for 28 inside! Luckily it all went well!
Due to Samsjøen and Håen, the two lakes on each side of the cabin, improving their hydroelectric power station, there was a bit of construction and landscaping going on next to the cabin. Our usual setup of the antennas could not be executed and we had to make a new plan. As we had measured how much cable was needed before we went, we had to make sure our new setup had enough coax cable!
We managed just fine, with the dipoles being put in the construction site. Next year we have to take a summer preview inspection trip to take a look at what the QTH looks like!
Friday night we had a BBQ, eating hamburgers and hot dogs. We planned our new antenna setup, started with rigging of the shack and played board games getting to know each other.
To make sure all of the 25 new participants had an opportunity to help build one of the antennas, we had a board-planning meeting where everyone was distributed to one of the antennas. Here we also explained the rules of Field Day and made a priority list of what antennas would have to be QRV first.
On Saturday morning we got up at 7.00 am and had breakfast. At 8.00 am we went to work, building the Spider Beam and the Banana Phone. This went by quite fast, and not long after the 80m antenna was also on its way up.
The SatRotor antenna was also with us this year, hoping we would finally make it work. Everything looked fine, but the power supply made too much noise, so we had to turn it off to be able to get QSO’s on the 20m and 40m bands.
Next year we have to make a separate shack for the SatRotor or buy a new power supply.
Our dipoles went up in the texas tower and our new mast, the Comrod, who was gifted to us by an old member. Thankfully we brought the Comrod and the Røde Kors mast to Field Day, as we needed them both because of the landscape work going on around the cabin!
In the Shack we had several pileups on the 20m band, our experienced operator LB9JJ was on fire and got a lot of contacts.
Out of our 866 qsos, our YL (young Ladies) had 547 of them(63%)! The boys need to keep up!
This year, we decided to invite all our neighbors to Samatun to take a look at what we are doing at Field Day! We announced ahead that we invited everyone to an “open day” two hours after the contest had started. Visitors had the chance to go on the air, have a look at all our antennas, hear about our lord and savior “the license course” and we made waffles for everyone who attended, free of charge! One of our young neighbors (12 years) was at samatun for two hours, having the entire tour of everything. We hope that we have ignited a spark in the radio interest, and that he will apply as a member in 6 years time!
We have already started the planning of next year’s Field Day and are looking forward to it!
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